One Interesting Week!

Hello Family!

I’m glad everyone had a good and happy Thanksgiving! This actually had to have been my worst week as far as missionary work, of all time! All, not just some, but ALL of our investigators dropped out, no one wants to get baptized anymore or continue teaching them! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!!

I will start with Familia Reyes. They were suppose to be baptized last Saturday but something happened...Hermana Ana went to church last Sunday, which is awesome, but went to the Sunday School class and not gospel principles cause we didn’t have enough people to teach. She learned about baptisms for the dead (yeah I’m pretty sure she was confused too), and then a very special sister stood up and talked about baptisms for the dead, and here in Nicaragua they use a phrase that can go both ways “tiene que” which can mean “you have to!” or “you can” depending on the tone of the persons voice. Well the hermana stood up and said to the rest of the members “ustedes tiene que hacer el bautismo por los muertos” (you have to do baptisms for the dead, with a tone) and this offended our catholic investigator a lot…..so after the class she said I have to talk with you, then she said “tomorrow we will talk”. So I was like oh dang….

So the next day we went to her house. And when we get there and call “Buenos!” her daughter Jose (who is a recent convert) comes to us crying and I was thinking “oh crap something happened” and she told us that her parents didn’t want to be baptized. We go in and talk a little bit with the parents and ask “so what do you want to talk about?” and she (the mom) had a question “what is this baptizing dead people?!” and we explained what it was exactly and used the scriptures and the scripture from the bible in Corinthians that talks about baptisms for the dead. Really I don’t know what happened but she just flipped out saying that’s blasphemy and all that jazz…her husband didn’t go to church that Sunday, so she filled him in on what she learned from class that day, about baptizing dead people. He got mad and started yelling at us too…then my companion just took over and used all the reasons and importance for baptisms for the dead (calmly). But they still didn’t understand (and said some hurtful things), so I bore my testimony saying I would die for what I believe in, I will take whatever people throw at me and defend what I KNOW to be true. Yes I will admit when I was saying all of this I did have a tone so they were all offended and so was I, so my companion asks for forgiveness, then we left.

Our other family, Familia Perez I thought were doing good, they just didn’t go to church this Sunday and last Sunday and we had an appointment with them on Tuesday and we got their talked a bit then I asked why they weren’t able to go to church. The week before they had a reasonable excuse that his wife had kidney problems, then this week their excuse was; “WE WERE BORN CATHOLIC AND WE WILL DIE CATHOLIC!” so that was that…

Then the family, Familia Escampin (Maria and Rigoberto) just gave up, they never went to church and don’t want to keep any of the commitments (excepted baptism). To top that all off, remember I had only one week with Elder Harris to learn the area and meet the people and know where they live. Then I got my new companion and with the experience I had, and with the new mission goal of visiting all the members and asking for references from them. I failed miserably this week. For some reason the ward roster here doesn’t have directions to houses only names, so they gave us an old 2008 June ward roster, so half the people have moved and are from the other ward cause they separated the ward. Plus the directions here just stink! Ha-ha

I don’t remember if I explained to you how directions here work, but its like this: My house is by The Circle K, 5 blocks north 2 blocks east, around the corner, down the hill, under the bridge, passed the two fat dogs, across the river, and the fifth house to the left. Did you get that? Ha-ha That’s is how they do directions, they use a point of reference and then give you a direction to were their house could be located. Only sometimes they tend to be wrong or we just can’t find the house. Oh, but here is my favorite direction we found on the old ward roster; Joseline Garcia lives south of the hospital (and there are over 500 houses south of the hospital.)

Yeah it’s been a hard week, a lot of walking, a lot of rejection, and little teaching and help from members. We went to a members house (actually a returned missionary, who got back last week from serving in Panama) Set up at time and date when he could go with us, he lives like 3 ½ kilometers away so we get to his house and he’s like “sorry Elders I got to “hacer un mandado” which is like an run an errand, so he could not go with us.

Well I’m sorry for my vocabulary but you know it’s just been a heck of a week! Ha-ha

Christmas here will be interesting, the Catholic churches are real popular here, there are a ton! They have the church service outside or something with their loud speakers shouting all kinds of things about the Virgin Mary. Then they have a parade float at night with a life like statue of the Virgin Mary and a marching band. They march and play music and shout and they do this every night till the 25th of December. They also have fire works that they randomly launch off at any time during the day and night (they usually stop around midnight) The reason I know all of this is a church is right next to our house! Ha-ha yeah it’s crazy. My companion and I stood in front of our church one night and when the parade marched by we invite them to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That was fun, there were a lot that told us we were going to hell and all that good stuff…

I will try my best this week and try preaching to all these hard-hearted folks and soften them up a bit. Ha-ha Ahhh… Kendall what a cutie, email me some pictures so I can see what everyone looks like now!

Well I’m out of time!

Love, Elder Buck

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